Why the finance minister is taking flak in the latest battle between the two Brians

At Mayor Brian Bowman's city hall, the worst barb you can hurl at an elected official is to portray them as cool with the legacy of Winnipeg's previous mayor, Sam Katz.

Bowman does this to Coun. Janice Lukes whenever he points out she's the only member of council who didn't call for a provincial inquiry into the scandals of the Katz era.

But it was something new and altogether weirder when Winnipeg's mayor unleashed this missive against Manitoba Finance Minister Scott Fielding, who spent eight years as the city councillor for St. James prior to his election as a Progressive Conservative MLA.

Late last week, Bowman questioned the propriety of Fielding playing any role in a provincial review of planning, zoning and permitting that includes the City of Winnipeg.

• Bowman accuses province of politicizing development regulation review

"He worked quite closely with former mayor Sam Katz and former CAO Phil Sheegl and is certainly somebody who knows land-use planning very well and I gather he'll be overseeing treasury board and their work on this matter," the mayor told reporters in a scrum following a council meeting on May 16.

The mayor's implication was clear: He was attempting to associate a member of Premier Brian Pallister's cabinet with the people responsible for the projects he wants the province to illuminate — most notably, the police headquarters construction — as part of a public inquiry.

Bowman has said, repeatedly, he's annoyed council's call for an inquiry has gone unheeded while the province has instead chosen to review municipal planning, zoning and permitting.

The mayor also claims this review, which is already well underway, won't be impartial because the finance minister recommended it as part of an order in council.

"I'm disappointed this isn't an independent review as promised by the premier," Bowman said on Tuesday. "The political nature of the review is concerning, and the fact it is headed by someone who is a veteran here."

As a member of executive policy committee, Scott Fielding worked with Katz. But so did many senior members of Brian Bowman's city hall, including chief financial officer Mike Ruta, chief corporate services officer Michael Jack and chief transportation and utilities officer Dave Wardrop, to name but a few.

Pressed to explain the special treatment he afforded to Fielding, Bowman said the finance minister worked for a developer between the time he stepped away from city hall and was elected to the Manitoba Legislature.

This claim is true. During the 18-month gap between serving as a councillor and an MLA, Fielding worked for Winnipeg real-estate developer Qualico.

Eric Vogan, vice president for Qualico, said Fielding worked on amendments to the Airport Area West Secondary Plan, a planning framework that governs the use of city land located west of Richardson International Airport and north of Saskatchewan Avenue.

The work amounted to project management, Fielding said in an interview, explaining that he consulted with 10 property owners and other people affected by land-use changes west of the airport.

The finance minister said this work provided him with practical experience in land development that augmented his work on the regulatory and approval side during eight years as a city councillor.

"I think that gives me some practical experience with dealing with red tape and really both sides," he said, before adding he's actually playing no oversight role in the planning, zoning and permitting review.

That work is being done by public servants at the provincial treasury board, said Fielding, adding developers and construction companies are eager to see a reduction in red tape, and not just at the City of Winnipeg, but in other municipalities and at Manitoba Hydro.

According to an initial report from the treasury board, the review is investigating whether regulatory systems are actively dissuading investment in Manitoba, harming the economy and reducing tax revenues in the process.

"This can be a really positive thing," Fielding said of the review. "I think the mayor should really take this opportunity."

A question of perceived conflict

The mayor, of course, appears anything but enthusiastic about a review he deems to be entirely political in nature. Hence the motivation for Bowman to call out Fielding for his ties to Katz and the development community.

"I think it's somewhat ridiculous. You know that this really shouldn't be personal," Fielding said in response to Bowman's comments.

That said, the mayor raises legitimate questions about whether Fielding's work for Qualico creates a perception of conflict around the finance minister's involvement in the review.

To be clear, there is no fiduciary conflict at play here. Fielding no longer works for a developer and no longer operates the consulting company he used when he worked on contract for Qualico.

It also doesn't matter an elected official used to work in a given industry, said Neil McArthur, director of the centre for professional and applied ethics at the University of Manitoba.

What matters, McArthur said, is whether an elected official is close to an industry player who stands to benefit from any policy changes that are influenced by the actions of that elected official.

In Fielding's case, Qualico could easily be seen to benefit from changes to planning, zoning and permitting in Manitoba. Eric Vogan is also a vocal critic of Winnipeg's growth fees, which Bowman championed, and supported mayoral candidate Jenny Motkaluk in her unsuccessful effort to unseat the current mayor.

But there's a second test of whether an elected official is in a position of perceived conflict: The official has to be the decision maker responsible for the policy change, McArthur said.

Here's where it appears Fielding is off the hook, as it was cabinet that issued the order in council to get the review going. Furthermore, in this provincial government, the premier — not the finance minister — is the ultimate decision maker, as anyone who's ever spent time observing Brian Pallister would attest.

"This starts to get over into politics," McArthur said of the question of whether Scott Fielding has crossed any ethical lines.

In the end, the poor relationship between Brian Bowman and Brian Pallister appears to be the main dynamic at play in the latest of many recent city-provincial dust-ups.